Document Type
Presentation - Poster - Presentation
Department
Biology
Date of Activity
9-23-2024
Abstract
In 1856, Leidy rst identied Troodontidae as a taxonomic unit. It was not until 1945 that C.M. Sternberg assigned it to a family status. There has been much debate on taxonomic naming in this family, but in 1987, Currie conated all previous names into a single species, Troodon formosus. On the basis of isolated teeth, Carpenter (1982) suggested a second species, Pectinodon bakkeri from the Lance Formations. With limited specimens (24), Longrich (2008) proposed tooth positioning for the 4 tooth types he dened. This was especially challenging since no cranial or post-cranial skeletal structures have yet been identied.
Over the past 10 years, more than 500 P. bakkeri teeth have been collected from the Neufeld microsite on the Hanson ranch in northeast Wyoming. Initial collection of teeth from a western harvester ant nest, led to test sampling 12 plots on a grid spaced 8 meters apart. Additional sampling of the most productive area produced over 2000 dened elements including P. bakkeri teeth.
By measuring physical features such as crown height, basal width, basal length, posterior denticles per mm., anterior denticles, and wear marks, we have identied three major clusters of tooth shapes. Based on these results, we propose a modied positioning for teeth in P. bakkeri for yet undiscovered jaws
Recommended Citation
Snyder, K., Campos, J., Doran, N., and Simmons, C. 2024. Tooth type and position in a hypothetical Pectinodon Bakkeri jaw. Geological Society of America Poster. Session 114, T129.
Comments
We are attempting to find the correct position in the jaw for two or three different tooth morphotypes of a dinosaur that has no other cranial or post cranial material known.